To expect my local coffee shop to let me in with a pram?

[Shockingundercrackers]

Will try to keep this brief. My local coffee shop owner has just refused me entry with a pram (not a massive silver cross call the midwife one, just a bugaboo style thing). He said he was busy (he wasn't, and although its a small place there were only two other customers inside) and that buggies had to be parked outside. I can see the logic of this, but a pram with a 5 week old sleeping baby in it isn't really a buggy is it? Or is it?

I should have remonstrated with the grumpy fecker of course, but it had taken me so long to get said infant out of the house and I was so hungry and tired I thought I might embarrass myself and start blubbing. I beat a hasty retreat.

I've been fuming ever since of course. AIBU?

forgetful I think you are being deliberately obtuse. Of course there is more risk to a baby of spillage if it is strapped to your front while you are drinking a hot drink than if baby is away from the hot drink in a pram. Yes there is still a risk to any child in a cafe but much lower if the coffee isn't over their head.

. And why are folded up prams seen as preferable? More of a trip hazard surely?

forgetful I think you are being deliberately obtuse. Of course there is more risk to a baby of spillage if it is strapped to your front while you are drinking a hot drink than if baby is away from the hot drink in a pram. Yes there is still a risk to any child in a cafe but much lower if the coffee isn't over their head.

. And why are folded up prams seen as preferable? More of a trip hazard surely?

Bugaboo's are not exactly tiny. They are closer to a Silver Cross than to a small foldable pushchair. For that reason, I think YABU. However, did he have seating outside? If not, it was quite unwelcoming but if he did, it makes sense. I used to work in a cafe and although I can't remember anyone ever bringing their pram inside, I'm fairly sure the owner (surly French grump) would have had the same sort of policy. However he did have outside seating and it was fine if they sat there.

depends which Bugaboo the OP has - a Bee is very narrow, a Cameleon bigger with a carrycot and a Donkey is really a double buggy. I don't really think any are as big as a Silver Cross (if you mean the big perambulator type).

When I was buggy shopping many were advertised as being collapsible with one hand, so I think that is still important. I know that a lot of the time I wouldn't have been able to collapse it due to the amount of shopping I might have had in the basket and hanging from the handles - so, if it had ever come to it, I would have got off the bus rather than collapse the buggy.

More people want ones that face the parent. I think something in the design of that means hard to fold in one piece.

I haven't compared someone with a baby to a disabled person, MrsDeVere: I asked why one form of discrimination is considered okay and the other not: a very different thing. A shopkeeper can't practise discrimination against certain categories of people because we accept that those offering business or services should not get to decide who they do or don't offer those services to based on their own prejudices. So (rightly IMO) B&B owners cannot refuse their services to gay couples; cafe owners can't prevent those with wheelchairs from coming in; landlords can no longer put up "no blacks no Irish" signs, and so on. Those kinds if discrimination are rightly now illegal. So why then should someone offering services be able to refuse them to other categories of people just because he feels like it? Is that not also discrimination? If the cafe owner decided he didn't like people carrying laptops or large red bags or wheeling a suitcase would he be at liberty to demand those be left outside too? If you had a few large shopping bags and he said you couldn't have coffee unless you left them outside would you think that was okay on the ground that that was his prerogative?

If someone offers a business service shouldn't they offer it to all, not just who they feel they want to serve?

I think he would, george. Because things such as large bags and indeed babies are people's choices. Whereas to be disabled, or gay, or Irish, is intrinsic - you don't get to choose. It would probably be a bad business choice of the cafe owner, but not illegal.

There is a fundamental difference between having a baby that you have chosen to have and that you have chosen to take about with you in a certain way, and being black or Irish. Neither, of course, are 'wrong'. For what it's worth I think the cafe owner in this case was BU and a bit shortsighted, but that's up to him.

I found it interesting how this contrasted with the OP's experience in Holland. Interestingly, a cafe near me (which is located in total nappy valley territory) was very well known for being anti-baby and child - the last time I drove past it I noticed it has closed down. It seems likely these 2 facts are connected.

But that's interesting in itself though, isn't it - that people feel they are entitled to be openly discriminatory against certain people as long as it seems that the reason for the discrimination is within someone's control. But is that any better? Can that person go back and make a different choice so that they don't get discriminated against?
There are lots of grey areas, aren't there; and lots of areas where people used to think it perfectly all right to discriminate and we don't now think it's all right any more. Being of a particular religion is a choice, but we don't think it's okay to refuse services to someone because of it. Or because they wear their hair a certain way, or have a tattoo, or speak with a particular accent, and so on.

But MrsDeVere, do you think that's fine? A buggy may not be the same as a wheelchair, but a pram with a 5 week old baby is not the same as wearing a baseball cap in a nightclub either. The principle is: do you think a business owner should be able to refuse his services to someone through no fault of their own, because he doesn't like something about them? A dog or a shopping cart can be left outside, but not a small baby in a pram.

I don't think that was unreasonable of you. Like someone else said, most places have to be reasonably wheelchair accessible, and a 5 week old sleeping baby is really understandable to want to leave undisturbed. God knows you're likely to be having enough trouble putting a newborn off to sleep at night, so to play that game in the day seems unreasonable.

I use a sling a lot and drinking hot drinks overhead can be a bit dodgy. I've ha a few food spills over time and luckily it's cold enough not to worry, but it's still less than ideal. Plus you'd wake the baby by putting them in a sling and then taking then back out again.

However, they're probably afraid that if they let one in, they have to let all in. And maybe some people will start to take the pee a bit.

I personally would explain the deal to you, then find you the best corner for "just this once" - making it clear its only because your sleeping baby is so new and that you're being allowed as a favour.

He wasn't banning the baby,just the pram.

See, this is the thing. OP has spent lots of money there. This is not a cafe with hundreds of people passing through every day, this is a cafe in a fairly out of town area with limited clientele.

Any decent owner would have bleeding recognised her and thought of doing what atrcts suggests. Blooming 'eck, I mean DP gets asked for "the usual" after four days of visits in the middle of Sydney FGS. Isn't recognising and cultivating locals just good business?

Obviously his choice etc, but it does seem a bit daft.

YANBU I still boycott places with 'no buggies allowed' as I feel it discriminates against young mothers like you just trying to get out once in a while.

....because like she says she has to protect said baby from hot drink spillages.

On your own, how on earth are you meant to fold a pram while holding a five week old? Where do you put the baby while you're eating? This thread is descending into further impractical suggestions.

With your other hand Beau. I mean, obviously it is easier with 2, but that's what posters were saying up thread, it's what parents have always done.

I'm not saying it's not a lot easier for young parents nowadays, and I think that's brilliant, but it doesn't mean what's always been done is suddenly impossible.

It would be impossible to fold the pram I have (especially with the newborn lie-flat seat) one handed while holding a 5 week old. Most of the prams I see round here likewise (including the OPs I imagine though I don't have that one).

It may or may not be good business sense to ban buggies. It is not discrimination.